The measurement of radioactivity deposited in the lung is often performed with an array of germanium detectors placed over the chest of the individual. The detector array size can be from four to eight detectors depending on the size of the germanium detector and Dewar assembly. Typically, large area diameter germanium detectors (70 mm diameter) consist of four detectors, and the larger arrays ...

Group IV Nanowires have strong potential for several biomedical applications. However, to date their use remains limited because many are synthesised using heavy metal seeds and functionalised using organic ligands to make the materials water dispersible. This can result in unpredicted toxic side effects for mammalian cells cultured on the wires. Here, we describe an approach to make seedless a...

Long lengths (250 meters) of a flexible 150 microm diameter glass-clad optical fiber containing a 15 microm diameter crystalline and phase-pure germanium core was fabricated using conventional optical fiber draw techniques. X-ray diffraction and spontaneous Raman scattering measurements showed the core to be very highly crystalline germanium with no observed secondary phases. Elemental analysis...

We have investigated the optical properties of tensile-strained germanium photonic wires. The photonic wires patterned by electron beam lithography (50 μm long, 1 μm wide and 500 nm thick) are obtained by growing a n-doped germanium film on a GaAs substrate. Tensile strain is transferred in the germanium layer using a Si₃N₄ stressor. Tensile strain around 0.4% achieved by the technique correspo...

Controlled tuning the electrical, optical, magnetic, mechanical and other characteristics of the leading semiconducting materials is one of the primary technological challenges. Here, we demonstrate that the electronic transport properties of conventional single-crystalline wafers of germanium may be dramatically tuned by application of moderate pressures. We investigated the thermoelectric pow...

Group-IVa elements silicon and germanium are known for their semiconducting properties at room temperature, which are technologically critical. Metallicity and superconductivity are found at higher pressures only, Ge β-tin (tI4) being the first high-pressure metallic phase in the phase diagram. However, recent experiments suggest that metallicity in germanium is compatible with room conditions,...

Germanium nanocrystals ~12 nm mean diam! and amorphous thin films ~60-250 nm thick! were prepared as anodes for lithium secondary cells. Amorphous thin film electrodes prepared on planar nickel substrates showed stable capacities of 1700 mAh/g over 60 cycles. Germanium nanocrystals showed reversible gravimetric capacities of up to 1400 mAh/g with 60% capacity retention after 50 cycles. Both ele...

The GERmanium Detector Array, GERDA, is designed for the search for “neutrinoless double beta decay” (0ν2β) with germanium detectors enriched in 76Ge. An 18-fold segmented prototype detector for GERDA Phase II was exposed to an AmBe neutron source to improve the understanding of neutron induced backgrounds. Neutron interactions with the germanium isotopes themselves and in the surrounding mater...

We have developed a transferable nonorthogonal tight-binding total energy model for germanium and use it to study small clusters. The cohesive energy, bulk modulus, elastic constants of bulk germanium can be described by this model to considerably good extent. The calculated bulk phase diagram for germanium agrees well with LDA results. The geometries and binding energies found for small Gen cl...